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vincentML -> Pres. Trump to resume sending military weapons to local police. (8/31/2017 12:49:11 PM)
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The Trump administration will unveil a new plan Monday to roll back limits on a controversial program that provides local law enforcement agencies with surplus military gear, marking the end of a policy implemented during the Obama administration.
Congressman William Lacy Clay has responded to the new executive order to be signed by Trump that rescinds President Obama’s directive.
His full statement reads as follows:
“Three years ago, as the tragedy in Ferguson unfolded, I personally witnessed local police in armored vehicles pointing military-style sniper rifles with night scopes at my constituents who were peacefully exercising their constitutional rights.
That over-militarization increased tensions, incited more violence and established a deadly perception that local police officers had become warriors instead of guardians of public safety.
In response, I worked closely with former President Obama and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Hagel to place reasonable limits on the distribution of military surplus items to local law enforcement. That was in keeping with key findings and recommendations of the President’s Taskforce on 21st Century Policing.
President Trump’s decision to rescind these limitations will allow local police departments to receive grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles, sniper rifles and military grade ammunition; along with other surplus Department of Defense equipment that was intended for use on the battlefield, not in neighborhoods.
President Trump’s reckless decision to remilitarize local police is another shameful step backwards as he continues to deepen divisions across this country while appeasing hate, bigotry and intolerance.”
source
From what I’ve read elsewhere, these will be some heavy duty weapons that are no longer needed on the battle field. I also understand that the procurement process will bypass city Council and go directly to me Defense Department and the city police.
You of a conspiracy mind may care to stop and consider whether it is a good idea to have a well-equipped standing military conducting the public safety business of towns and cities.
From the New York Times story on this issue
NEENAH, Wis. — Inside the municipal garage of this small lakefront city, parked next to the hefty orange snowplow, sits an even larger truck, this one painted in desert khaki. Weighing 30 tons and built to withstand land mines, the armored combat vehicle is one of hundreds showing up across the country, in police departments big and small.
The 9-foot-tall armored truck was intended for an overseas battlefield. But as President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s “long season of war,” the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice.
During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.
The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units. Police SWAT teams are now deployed tens of thousands of times each year, increasingly for routine jobs. Masked, heavily armed police officers in Louisiana raided a nightclub in 2006 as part of a liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of “barbering without a license.”
When the military’s mine-resistant trucks began arriving in large numbers last year, Neenah and places like it were plunged into the middle of a debate over whether the post-9/11 era had obscured the lines between soldier and police officer.
I find this kind of scary and maybe a threat to the continued establishment of the Republic. Maybe you can give me a a different point of view.
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